


Opening Gambit

by starfishing



Category: Kuroshitsuji
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-25
Updated: 2010-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 17:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishing/pseuds/starfishing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He killed a part of her." ... "Who killed the rest?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opening Gambit

The pain was a slow freeze, starting from deep in his stomach and spreading to the very tips of his fingers. A chill swept over him, goosebumps racing across his skin, and something unnamed ground to a halt inside him.

"Monsieur?" The woman's voice was gentle, painstakingly soft. "Is there someone else we should call?"

When her voice reached his ears, he remembered to breathe, and inhaled sharply, his head beginning to spin. "No," he said. His voice sounded weak. "She had no one else."

That was a lie, though, wasn't it? She must have been seeing Matthieu behind his back, just like he'd said she was before she'd left. He had to think so now, or he'd never be able to live with himself.

Who was he kidding? He'd never be able to live with himself, anyway.

—

The part that really got him, he realized, was that she was the only one who died. The gun shook in his hand, aimed unsteadily but decisively at Matthieu's chest. An entire ship of people, and every one of them managed to find a lifeboat. Every one of them but her. It was ridiculous to think that it was pure chance. Each and every one of those heartless lowlifes must have pushed her out of the way to save their own worthless skins.

"Just listen to me for a moment," Matthieu begged, showing his palms. "You don't have to do this."

But he had to do something. He had to do _something_ , for her sake, or something for himself; he wasn't sure. His finger tightened on the trigger.

"He's right," a voice said from behind him, low and level. "You don't have to do it."

He turned, backing away from them both and pointing his gun in the other direction.

The stranger was tall, head bowed beneath the low ceiling of Matthieu's flat. His hair was dark and unruly, overhanging his right eye; his left eye was a brilliant, glowing ruby. Behind him, a pair of massive, feathered wings occupied one entire end of the room. One black-nailed hand was wrapped around an ornate metal staff that culminated in a horned skull, the bottom jaw missing and a stark crack running from the right eye socket down one cheekbone. The left eye of the skull was a vibrant sapphire stone.

"Who the hell are you?" Matthieu looked further terrified. "Oh, God, I'm gonna die. Look, the last time I spoke to Anne-Marie was more than a year ago, when she filed the restraining order." He looked from one to the other, desperate.

The gun came back to him. "Restraining order?"

Matthieu backed away until his calves hit the coffee table. "She has a restraining order on me. I-I'm not legally allowed within a hundred yards of her."

A restraining order? A woman didn't get a restraining order on a man she wanted to have an affair with. For the first time, his trigger finger faltered."Why did she need a restraining order on you?"

Once again, Matthieu looked between them. "She... I... She filed domestic abuse charges against me when we split."

Domestic abuse? The very idea of warm, effulgent, heart-racing Anne-Marie being oppressed by a small tyrant of a man like Matthieu was astounding. His heart began to sink as he turned this over in his mind.

It all made sense now. The disappearances, the hushed phone conversations with Matthieu's name, the anxiety and the lies. She had been hiding something from him, certainly, but it was nothing so sinister as what he'd accused her of. He considered, briefly, turning the gun on himself. The thought was short-lived.

The gunshot's rapport rang in his ears for minutes after the smell of gunpowder faded. Matthieu's body was eerily still, and the blood pooling around it was not.

"He didn't kill her," the stranger observed.

"He killed a part of her."

"Who killed the rest?"

He faced the stranger again, gun lowered to his side. If anyone had killed her, it was those selfish bastards on that ship, too greedy to think of anyone but themselves. But no one had killed her, had they? She'd simply died, like a flower or a butterfly or a snowflake on someone's palm. She was gone, and there was no one to blame for that. He could only blame himself for the terms they'd parted on.

"No one killed her," he said heavily.

"Do you think so?" The question made him look up again. "You don't think that she may have survived, had other people acted differently?"

Had a person let her board a lifeboat before them, she would be alive now, wouldn't she? Had even one of those people thought of someone before themselves, she would be coming home to him in a day, and he could apologize, could catch her up in his arms and never let any harm come to her again. He could love her forever.

"How many people?" the stranger asked.

"More than two thousand," he answered.

"I can bring every last one before you to pay their respects."

**Author's Note:**

> This was an alternate storyline I dreamed up for Kuro. How might a contract have come about if Sebastian were the human, and Ciel was the slavering demon who showed up to claim him in a moment of weakness?


End file.
